§56: "But what if no such sample is part of the language, and we bear in mind the colour (for instance) that a word signifies?". — StreetlightX
Similarly, when I speak of a memory-image serving as a paradigm, one should read this as 'in the role of a paradigm', where, moreover, I use 'paradigm' interchangeably with 'sample'. Especially since I read §56 as insisting on the similarity/equivalence of role that the memory-image and a 'real life' sample/paradigm play in the kind of language-game under discussion. — StreetlightX
As a general point though, it's worth pointing out how odd it is to say that things 'stand for' words. — StreetlightX
It's also not the case that paradigms 'show the meaning of a name': a paradigm exhibits nothing but itself - one can look at a color sample all day and it will not 'show' its name — StreetlightX
it is our use of language and the incorporation of the sample in that use that will show the name of a sample. — StreetlightX
An example of something corresponding to the name, and without which it would have no meaning, is a paradigm that is used in connexion with the name in the language-game. — PI §55
§56: "But what if no such sample is part of the language, and we bear in mind the colour (for instance) that a word signifies?". — StreetlightX
Similarly, when I speak of a memory-image serving as a paradigm, one should read this as 'in the role of a paradigm', where, moreover, I use 'paradigm' interchangeably with 'sample'. Especially since I read §56 as insisting on the similarity/equivalence of role that the memory-image and a 'real life' sample/paradigm play in the kind of language-game under discussion. — StreetlightX
As a general point though, it's worth pointing out how odd it is to say that things 'stand for' words. — StreetlightX
It's also not the case that paradigms 'show the meaning of a name': a paradigm exhibits nothing but itself - one can look at a color sample all day and it will not 'show' its name — StreetlightX
Eh, I don't think you're paying enough attention to the fact that a paradigm is a role that something occupies in a particular language-game, and not an actual object or thing. — StreetlightX
Anyway, not a point I really want to follow through on, but this is the second time in this thread where 'things' have been said to stand for words, and it bothers me. — StreetlightX
We can put it like this: This sample is an instrument of the language used in ascriptions of colour. In this language-game it is not something that is represented, but is a means of representation.—And just this goes for an element in language-game (48) when we name it by uttering the word "R": this gives this object a role in our language game; it is now a means of representation. And to say "If it did not exist, it could have no name" is to say as much and as little as: if this thing did not exist, we could not use it in our language-game.—What looks as if it had to exist, is part of the language. It is a paradigm in our language-game; something with which comparison is made. And this may be an important observation; but it is none the less an observation concerning our language-game—our method of representation.
Notice that the object itself is the means of representation — Metaphysician Undercover
In §56, samples and memory-images both function to undergird a certain type of language-game, and the similarity Witty draws there is that both can 'fade', and that this fading has the same consequences for the kind of language-game under discussion. Just under half the discussion there is devoted to drawing out this similarity: — StreetlightX
When you say that "there is no equivalence between a paradigm and a memory image", this seems quite straightforwardly wrong, insofar as §56 and §57 both go out of their way - in fact it seems to me to be the very point of both discussions - to establish some rather clear equivalences: — StreetlightX
An example of something corresponding to the name, and without which it would have no meaning, is a paradigm that is used in connexion with the name in the language-game. — PI §56
In §56, samples and memory-images both function to undergird a certain type of language-game, and the similarity Witty draws there is that both can 'fade', and that this fading has the same consequences for the kind of language-game under discussion. Just under half the discussion there is devoted to drawing out this similarity: — StreetlightX
But what do we regard as the criterion for remembering it right? — PI §56
Let us imagine samples of colour being preserved in Paris like the standard metre. We define: "sepia" means the colour of the standard sepia which is there kept hermetically sealed.
A memory cannot be a standard. A standard must be public. It must be something that all of us can use.
— PI §50
In §57, the comparison is even more straightforward, insofar as Witty spells out in so many words that the forgetting the color is "comparable to that in which we’ve lost a paradigm which was an instrument of our language" - this being the conclusion and thus the major lesson of §57. — StreetlightX
↪Fooloso4 Sure, a memory-image is not a paradigm, happy to accept that. Hardly bears on the substance of the discussion, but okay. — StreetlightX
Forget this idealisation stuff. It has nothing to do with the PI. — StreetlightX
I don't see how you can deny an infinite regress. If your description of "learning a rule" includes that the person already knows a rule, then unless you can account for this already known rule in terms other than as "a rule", infinite regress is implied, and it is false to say that the description is "complete". — Metaphysician Undercover
Forget 'true' correspondence. Stop using words not employed by the PI. 'Ideal', 'True Correspondence', etc - these are MUisms that muddy the text beyond recognition. Among the lessons of the PI is that one ought to give up the search for things like 'true' correspondence or 'ideal way of describing the situation' - not because things are 'non-ideal' or 'not-true', but because the very idea of 'true' and 'ideal' as you use it is misguided from the very start. — StreetlightX
81. F. P. Ramsey once emphasized in conversation with me that
logic was a 'normative science'. I do not know exactly what he had
in mind, but it was doubtless closely related to what only dawned on
me later: namely, that in philosophy we often compare the use of words
with games and calculi which have fixed rules, but cannot say
that someone who is using language must be playing such a game.——
But if you say that our languages only approximate to such calculi
you are standing on the very brink of a misunderstanding. For then
it may look as if what we were talking about were an ideal language.
As if our logic were, so to speak, a logic for a vacuum.—Whereas logic
does not treat of language—or of thought—in the sense in which a
natural science treats of a natural phenomenon, and the most that can
be said is that we construct ideal languages. But here the word "ideal"
is liable to mislead, for it sounds as if these languages were better, more
perfect, than our everyday language; and as if it took the logician
to shew people at last what a proper sentence looked like.
All this, however, can only appear in the right light when one has
attained greater clarity about the concepts of understanding, meaning,
and thinking. For it will then also become clear what can lead us (and
did lead me) to think that if anyone utters a sentence and means or
understands it he is operating a calculus according to definite rules.
98. On the one hand it is clear that every sentence in our language
'is in order as it is'. That is to say, we are not striving after an ideal,
as if our ordinary vague sentences had not yet got a quite unexceptionable
sense, and a perfect language awaited construction by us.—On the
other hand it seems clear that where there is sense there must be perfect
order.——So there must be perfect order even in the vaguest sentence. — Wittgenstein
Are you suggesting that the statement "it will most likely rain tomorrow because a warm front is approaching" is not sufficiently 'complete'... — Isaac
To point us in the direction of his thinking, he only need show that language cannot be analysed into a simple series of rules outside of the social context in which the language user has been raised. — Isaac
Among the lessons of the PI is that one ought to give up the search for things like 'true' correspondence or 'ideal way of describing the situation' - not because things are 'non-ideal' or 'not-true', but because the very idea of 'true' and 'ideal' as you use it is misguided from the very start. — StreetlightX
But what are the simple constituent parts of which reality is composed?—What are the simple constituent parts of a chair?—The bits of wood of which it is made? Or the molecules, or the atoms? "Simple" means: not composite. And here the point is: in what sense 'composite'? It makes no sense at all to speak absolutely of the 'simple parts of a chair'. — PI 47
Both Russell's 'individuals' and my 'objects' (Tractates LogicoPhilosophicus] were such primary elements. — PI §46
Yes, as a description, it is not complete. This is the problem with descriptions, and correspondence in general, descriptions are never complete. "Complete description" is an oxymoron. — Metaphysician Undercover
The passages in the book are meant to be largely aphoristic. The 'answer', such as there is one, is not in the actual text, we're not going to understand it better by a closer exegesis. The 'answer' is what the text points to, not what it actually says. — Isaac
I ought to be no more than a mirror, in which my reader can see his own thinking with all its deformities so that, helped in this way he can put it right. — Culture and Value 18
Working in philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more a working on oneself. On one's interpretation. On one's way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.) — Culture and Value,16
You've missed a very important qualifier in my sentence. I asked if you would suggest that the reason given was not sufficiently complete, ie not complete enough to achieve its task.
This is why I think a broader view of Wittgenstein's intention is so important (as I keep mentioning) because one can only judge a philosophical endeavour, should one judge it at all, by whether it achieves what it sets out to do. It is only ever going to show some map, some model of the way things are from some particular frame. To ask completeness of it would be like complaining that a contour map did not show the vegetation completely. — Isaac
don’t think we can forgo a careful reading, an “exegesis”, of the text. The aphoristic nature of his writing does not preclude but demands just such a reading. — Fooloso4
We remind ourselves, that is to say, of the kind of statement that we make about phenomena — PI 90
Philosophy, as we use the word, is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert on us — Wittgenstein - Blue Book
The task of a philosopher is not the same as the task of a meteorologist. In philosophy any description which clearly implies infinite regress is undoubtedly an incomplete description. — Metaphysician Undercover
But you were the one who claimed that the description was complete. And now you realize that in "view of Wittgenstein's intention", perhaps you ought not even talk in terms like "completeness". — Metaphysician Undercover
If you have already determined the task of the philosopher then I don't think you're going to get much out of this text. — Isaac
I claimed it was "sufficiently" complete, a fact I already pointed out once that you had overlooked, such that your now continuing to do so seems disingenuous. — Isaac
Note the deliberately vague 'kinds of statement', not a complete list, not an ordered and categorised index, just a reminder of the kinds of statements.
At 91 he warns against thinking that there is something 'hidden' in the ordinary expression which analysis can reveal.
At 93 he specifically references the plight of the person who thinks that propositions are something queer as being caused by the forms that we use in expressing ourselves that "stand in his way" — Isaac
It is, to a great extent, about vagueness, the blurred boundaries of a concept, the inexactness of a definition. — Isaac
If you're going to pay such close attention to the words used, then at least do so without prejudice. — Isaac
Isn't what you are doing here exegetic? — Fooloso4
Isn't that something that becomes clear through from a careful reading of the text? — Fooloso4
A careful reading of the text does not commit one to " trying to fit [what is vague] into an exact logical category". Ramsey also warns against: "laziness and wooliness". — Fooloso4
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